Buffalo Bill was given the bear-skin,and I believe has it now.
The instances in which hunters who have rashly followed grislies into thick cover have been killed or severely mauled might be multiplied indefinitely.I have myself known of eight cases in which men have met their deaths in this manner.
It occasionally happens that a cunning old grisly will lie so close that the hunter almost steps on him;and he then rises suddenly with a loud,coughing growl and strikes down or seizes the man before the latter can fire off his rifle.More rarely a bear which is both vicious and crafty deliberately permits the hunter to approach fairly near to,or perhaps pass by,its hiding-place,and then suddenly charges him with such rapidity that he has barely time for the most hurried shot.The danger in such a case is of course great.
Ordinarily,however,even in the brush,the bear's object is to slink away,not to fight,and very many are killed even under the most unfavorable circumstances without accident.If an unwounded bear thinks itself unobserved it is not apt to attack;and in thick cover it is really astonishing to see how one of these large animals can hide,and how closely it will lie when there is danger.About twelve miles below my ranch there are some large river bottoms and creek bottoms covered with a matted mass of cottonwood,box-alders,bull-berry bushes,rosebushes,ash,wild plums,and other bushes.These bottoms have harbored bears ever since I first saw them;but,though often in company with a large party,I have repeatedly beaten through them,and though we must at times have been very near indeed to the game,we never so much as heard it run.
When bears are shot,as they usually must be,in open timber or on the bare mountain,the risk is very much less.Hundreds may thus be killed with comparatively little danger;yet even under these circumstances they will often charge,and sometimes make their charge good.The spice of danger,especially to a man armed with a good repeating rifle,is only enough to add zest to the chase,and the chief triumph is in outwitting the wary quarry and getting within range.Ordinarily the only excitement is in the stalk,the bear doing nothing more than keep a keen look-out and manifest the utmost anxiety to get away.As is but natural,accidents occasionally occur;yet they are usually due more to some failure in man or weapon than to the prowess of the bear.
A good hunter whom I once knew,at a time when he was living in Butte,received fatal injuries from a bear he attacked in open woodland.The beast charged after the first shot,but slackened its pace on coming almost up to the man.The latter's gun jambed,and as he was endeavoring to work it he kept stepping slowly back,facing the bear which followed a few yards distant,snarling and threatening.
Unfortunately while thus walking backwards the man struck a dead log and fell over it,whereupon the beast instantly sprang on him and mortally wounded him before help arrived.
On rare occasions men who are not at the time hunting it fall victims to the grisly.This is usually because they stumble on it unawares and the animal attacks them more in fear than in anger.One such case,resulting fatally,occurred near my own ranch.The man walked almost over a bear while crossing a little point of brush,in a bend of the river,and was brained with a single blow of the paw.In another instance which came to my knowledge the man escaped with a shaking up,and without even a fight.His name was Perkins,and he was out gathering huckleberries in the woods on a mountain side near Pend'Oreille Lake.Suddenly he was sent flying head over heels,by a blow which completely knocked the breath out of his body;and so instantaneous was the whole affair that all he could ever recollect about it was getting a vague glimpse of the bear just as he was bowled over.When he came to he found himself lying some distance down the hill-side,much shaken,and without his berry pail,which had rolled a hundred yards below him,but not otherwise the worse for his misadventure;while the footprints showed that the bear,after delivering the single hurried stoke at the unwitting disturber of its day-dreams,had run off up-hill as fast as it was able.
A she-bear with cubs is a proverbially dangerous beast;yet even under such conditions different grislies act in directly opposite ways.Some she-grislies,when their cubs are young,but are able to follow them about,seem always worked up to the highest pitch of anxious and jealous rage,so that they are likely to attack unprovoked any intruder or even passer-by.Others when threatened by the hunter leave their cubs to their fate without a visible qualm of any kind,and seem to think only of their own safety.
In 1882Mr.Casper W.Whitney,now of New York,met with a very singular adventure with a she-bear and cub.He was in Harvard when Iwas,but left it and,like a good many other Harvard men of that time,took to cow-punching in the West.He went on a ranch in Rio Arriba County,New Mexico,and was a keen hunter,especially fond of the chase of cougar,bear,and elk.One day while riding a stony mountain trail he saw a grisly cub watching him from the chaparral above,and he dismounted to try to capture it;his rifle was a 40-90Sharp's.
Just as he neared the cub,he heard a growl and caught a glimpse of the old she,and he at once turned up-hill,and stood under some tall,quaking aspens.From this spot he fired at and wounded the she,then seventy yards off;and she charged furiously.He hit her again,but as she kept coming like a thunderbolt he climbed hastily up the aspen,dragging his gun with him,as it had a strap.When the bear reached the foot of the aspen she reared,and bit and clawed the slender trunk,shaking it for a moment,and he shot her through the eye.Off she sprang for a few yards,and then spun round a dozen times,as if dazed or partially stunned;for the bullet had not touched the brain.
